Cupcakes for Amy
by GlitterElixir
Summary: Change doesn't always happen in the wake of a thousand explosions. Sometimes, all it takes is one. Amy Rose centric story. Sonic/Amy
1. Pilot

_'Cupcakes for Amy'_

_Summary: Change doesn't always happen in the wake of a thousand explosions. Sometimes, all it takes is one. Amy Rose centric story. Sonic/Amy_

_Focuspoints: Amy Rose, Sonic/Amy, the rest of the team._

* * *

This is what it was like after Chris left.

Things simply chose to resume, her life working over the hole he had left until the wound was gone altogether. She would awake at whatever time she pleased, but made a rule to limit the time frame to no later than the middle of the afternoon, and never earlier than the first few hours of morning. Anytime between then she would slip out of her bed and proceed with the boring ritual of getting ready. It was hard losing a friend, especially when sometimes she wondered if that was what actually transpired, but she did well in moving on. She was not the only one to question if he had really left, for one minute he was there and then he simply wasn't, or if he had even been sent home like they were told. But with no way to communicate to him, her worry evaporated into a little nagging feeling every so often.

She found that most of the time all she did was make sweets. It started on a particular day, with one apple pie that was sweet and made her lips part into a smile, and soon afterward delicious delights filled her countertops and threatened to spill over. She was usually covered in flour and such things by the time she decided to stop. When that happened, she would walk to Cream's house and drop off a good deal of her creations, before asking around and just giving away the rest. Usually everyone wanted something of hers, especially after they had decided to settle down for the day. Then she would clean up her kitchen, write down a list of things to do, and wait until it was time to go to sleep, to repeat the process.

But on this day, before she could even get around to finding a new recipe to toy with, Amy Rose's carefully planned routine was ruined by a knock on the door. When she opened it, still wearing her personally made one-of-a-kind absolutely _only for Amy_ apron that Ella had taken the time to make for her, she was surprised to see Miles Prower; someone who was not usually in her normal-day planned activities. Crime-fighting activities, yes, but there had been little to none of that lately, even in the past few weeks. Rumor had it that Eggman had gone underground. Which meant that he was working on a big bad machine that would soon join his extensive pile of failures, but that it might be a long time before his latest scheme was ready.

"Hi Tails," Amy said with a smile. She was upbeat today, naturally. "Come on in." When she led Tails to the living room, she gave a quick grin before slipping off into the kitchen. She poked her head through the little window-like arch that allowed the two rooms to be connected, and gave her usual hospital welcome. "What would you like to drink? I've got some fresh lemonade I just made, and I made some cupcakes this morning. Oh, never mind, I know just what you want anyway. I have something for you." She arranged a particular cupcake on a little plate and poured the sweetest freshest tartest lemonade this side of Mobius and walked back to the couch, where Tails sat slightly intrigued.

"Amy," He said, catching a little of her surprise. "Is that-?"

Amy gave a little laugh and a nod of the head, settling both the plate and the lemonade down on the coffee table with one fluid motion. Tails lifted the plate with the treat on it, and looked amazed at the work of art she had done. First off, this cupcake was huge, so that the top and the bottom were in perfect sync and too big for a single bite. And though Tails didn't know it, the outside was made of strawberry, and the core of the cupcake was filled with homemade melted chocolate fudge. The very top of it was covered in frosting, but it was the carefully decorated design that really made this sweet something special. Tails felt a sense of awe at what his friend had created. The majority of the colored frosting was a light blue, but white frosting was mixed in here and there to look like lovely clouds. And the most amazing thing of all was that this cupcake carried a frosting rendition of the X-Tornado, but instead of looking like a childish sugarplum version, it looked surprisingly accurate, enough to make his heart stretch.

"I made it special." Amy spoke up, cheerfully awaiting his thoughts on her hard work. "The people in town absolutely love these guys. I call them Jumbo Cakes, I know the name's not all that great, but I'm working on it." Amy sat down and sipped her own glass of lemonade.

"This is incredible!" Tails praised, examining the cupcake at all sides. "Thanks so much Amy! It's so pretty I almost don't wanna ruin it by eating it." The two animals laughed a little and Amy shook her head.

"Don't be silly! It'd be a shame if this beauty went to waste. You be sure to be honest with me about how it tastes too!" She playfully punched his arm. When the fox took a little bite, she watched his reaction carefully. He sat there with his eyes closed, chewing slowly while making little sounds that made her smile widen. When he finally finished his bite, she was in his face, big green eyes shining with hope. "Well? Tell me what you think!"

"Seriously?" When Amy nodded Tails licked his lips. "I think this is better than anything I've ever had in my whole life! You have a real talent Amy, and I mean it." He took another bite. "But the best thing is the chocolate in the middle. How did you _do_ that? It's like heaven." Amy rejoiced in his compliments, but once he swallowed the second bite, his demeanor slightly changed. "Actually, I didn't just come here for a visit, Amy. I should have told you that before."

"Oh," Amy said, a little worried. "Okay…"

"The thing is, I want to do something…" Tails stopped there, and chose to stare at his reflection in his drink.

"Something?" Amy blinked. "Like a big something? Or a little something?"

"A big something." Tails answered.

"Oh, alright." Amy searched her mind, but couldn't fathom what he could possibly be thinking. "Well, is there anything I can do to help?"

"Yeah." Tails set down his plate and his cup, and looked at her seriously. "You see, I know we've all kind of been healing since we got back from defeating the Metallix. And there's still a lot of hurt in all of us. Sonic runs like he's trying to, I dunno, escape something. Knuckles seems determined not to mention it at all, and he's totally focused on the Master Emerald. Cream, well, she's just scared sometimes. And I know we've all decided to kind of heal on our own…but…" Tails cleared his throat. "But Cosmo died. Cosmo died and I feel like nobody knows it except for me. Sometimes it's like I'm the only one who remembers that she was even here. When we got back, every Mobian in town wanted to know what happened, and where our friend went. We put that on hold...decided to wait...but I'm done." Tails lifted his head and looked her straight in the eyes, so that she could not misunderstand him. "I want to have a funeral."

Seconds passed, a couple of blinks between them. "I..." Amy coughed a little, and gave a shrug of the shoulders. "I'm going to...go get some more lemonade." She stood straight up and slowly walked into the kitchen. Looking around, she saw the stacked containers of sugar cookies, the neat rows of absolutely flawless pies, and even the picture perfect cakes that had their own unique spark. She wanted to get out another bowl, grab a couple handfuls of chocolate chips, she wanted to make more sweets, Making sweets was fun, it was easy, it kept her mind off of anything unpleasant. Yes, she should be baking right now. _Stop it, _she quieted her thoughts, _Tails is in the living room right now and he came to you because he knew you're the only one who could do it. He's right, and I know it. He's right. So stop baking for five minutes and go in there to help him. _Amy gathered her breath and strutted to her cabinet, and pulled out a couple of books from the shelf. She found the page she had marked, the page that had been marked and looked over for years, and walked back into the living room to meet Tails.

His eyebrows slanted sadly at the sight of her. It took her a brief second to realize her eyes were glazed with tears. "Amy..."

She sat down right beside him and opened the book, ignoring his concern. "So this is what I was thinking." She showed him the picture of the spring colored banners, every color found in a June garden. "Let's have it outside, and lets string these all around the trees like a little archway. We'll have her memorial where we first met her. With all the trees and flowers it'll be beautiful." She kept going, not noticing that Tails was not staring at her highlighted portions or tabbed reminders, but at her face. "Where the memorial is we'll have a pretty marble stone. And two big huge vases with _huge_ bouquets of flowers in each one. We'll have the seating close, not parted down the middle, but like half circle. And right behind that, white tables and chairs to have a reception afterward. I'll make all the food, don't you worry about that..."

"That sounds great...but..." Tails paused and when they met eyes his irises reflected a stunned emotion. "Amy...this is..."

The pink hedgehog looked back down at the book, and saw what had alarmed the fox. She reached down and took the note in her hands, crumbling it up, which wasn't hard. The note had been written ages ago. She grinned, felt it in her core, the healing. "It's going to be amazing, when it's done." She whispered, and the two smiled at each other. They resumed then, as life would, bent over the pages while they discussed an event that would be more of a celebration than a funeral. In the corner of her living room, an air conditioned breeze rolled the crumbled note half open.

Not that it mattered, the only words that had been written were unrecognizable. No one would be able to tell the age old note labeling the pages had once read:

_My Wedding._

* * *

The next day, instead of making sweets, Amy Rose got up and went to the shopping center.

She stopped at a floral shop and ordered as many flowers as she was allowed, and when she watched them write down the order in disbelief, she felt a sense of satisfaction. She bought a perfectly tailored magnificently red dress and perfectly trendy but appropriate red boots to match, a small box of neatly arranged sushi for lunch, and a romantic novel that had initially looked too risqué from a first glance. By the time she was done she felt as big as the sky, though exactly why could not be explained. The entire time, the only thing she thought about was the funeral. The colors, the decorations, the food. Yes, thinking about the food was her favorite part.

She spoke to herself silently. "A dozen Jumbo Cakes, each individually assigned. A strawberry short cake might be better than an angel food cake, but the main course is the tricky part. Lobster seems over the line, but then again...I want this to be a grand occasion. Is that wrong? Tails wanted a celebration of her life, but what if I make it too-?"

She stopped mid-out loud rant. Her eyes fixed on the item for sale in the middle of the current store she was in. She stepped up to it and called for an employee. "How much for it?" She asked a teenage worker with a ring through her nose. She sat down at the bench and let her hands hover over the smooth black surface of an exquisite beautifully crafted grand piano.

"Aren't you Amy Rose?" The girl said, and without needing an answer her eyebrow arched. "What do you need a piano like this for?"

"I want to hear somebody play a song on it," Amy continued on, choosing not to listen. Her fingers still hovered, as if she couldn't quite make up her mind if she wanted to change it or not. Like looking out at a blanket of fresh snow untouched, she was holding off on tainting it with tangible touch. Determination painted her face as she lifted her irises to meet the girl who had questioned her. "I want to hear this piano. Before I buy it. Something classical, you know? Can anybody here play the piano like that?"

"Yeah, I can give it a shot." The girl sat on the bench beside her, and with a natural ease lifted the covering to expose the piano in its rawest section. The two met eyes and the unknown employer offered a little smile. Her fingernails were painted like miniature galaxies, and they were enough to transfix Amy into trusting her. "My mother was a music teacher. I had to learn all those dumb odes and stuff." To Amy's amazement, the minute she quieted to focus, it was as if the girl before her had changed. Her posture straightened, and Amy found herself battling goosebumps. And then, after only a second longer, the girl played.

The melody was soft and sweet, but also _sad_, as if the notes were meant to tell a story. It drifted from the fingers of the girl to Amy's ears and into the air as if the whole scene had been waiting for its own theme. Amy closed her eyes, felt the need, and saw before her eyes things she had forced herself to forget. Cosmo, laughing shoulder to shoulder with Cream and Knuckles, her hand over her mouth as if ashamed to let grief go. Sonic and Knuckles recovering from the battle, how she had removed bandages to be shocked at the cuts, still angry and red and open as a mouth. She saw Chris, absent mindedly drawing blueprints for something, and Tails looking at the rough draft with a distant grin. She saw Vanilla the first day they had come home, standing at her doorway as Cream let go of Amy's hand and ran into the arms of her mother. She saw Rouge, shaking Sonic's hand as she said not in so many words that she would be joining their team. She saw Cosmo again, after a night that held no meaning, waking everyone up with her nightmares. And how Amy had tucked her back into her bed, neat and comforting, to tell her everything would be alright.

_"Nothing will happen to you," _she had said cheerfully but honestly. _"Not as long as we're here."_

The song ended with a simple slow chord, and when the song had stopped it was as if Amy was painfully aware, of all that was quiet. She opened her eyes and turned to the girl, who looked satisfied with herself. "What is that?" Amy asked, almost urgently. "What song did you just play?"

The girl blinked, and then looked off. "It's an old classic, my mother used to play it all the time. She said it was composed to tell about a man who was in love, but the love was hurting him and he knew it. The woman was an important figure in their society or something, and so he lived in her world of riches for her. But that wasn't what he wanted. So he left her. Not because he didn't love her, but because he didn't want to life the life he had with her anymore..." Her fingers placed the cover back in place, and her next answer was almost too quiet to hear. "It's called _The Year of Orchids_."

"Play it again." Amy whispered, and it was the focus in her eyes that kept anyone from mistaking her. "I'm buying the piano, but please. Play the song again."

The employee with painted nails did so, and this time Amy fell into it much faster. But instead she saw things as a whole. Meeting Cosmo, becoming her friend, saving planets, the final showdown with Dark Oak. One minute Cosmo was there, but then she was not, evolved and deep rooted into the evil, overwhelming it. One minute there, the next gone and forcing her loved one to kill her. One minute there, alive, and the next minute gone. Amy saw the events in a never ending circle, replaying in consistency, never changing. The moments in her mind are added in, and when the song ended again Amy knew it was not over. That she would not rest until the song showed her the ending. Not just those events, those seconds of recollection. She wanted to see how it must end, the end of the never ending circle. She wanted to see herself, making amends for a lie, getting on with her own life.

* * *

That day she made fourteen pies, six batches of sugar cookies, a chocolate cake with four layers and a mountain of homemade strawberry frosting.

She made six sweet caramel apples and the most delicious absolutely mind numbingly amazing fudge that she had ever tasted.

She made three Jumbo cupcakes, each of them telling great stories, and ended her day with a couple of cookies and a cup of hot chocolate.

When she cleaned up the kitchen, she had no more time to just give them away willy nilly.

So she placed the items on a red children's wagon that Cream had left over long ago. She hauled it through fatigue and stress and over hills and across the lawns of her neighbors. When she reached _Cassidy's Corner, _an old building that had been the only bakery of its kind and still remained the most famous, she scrawled her name on an envelope and set the wagon by the door. When she knocked, and a pregnant woman answered with a smudge of flour on her cheeks, she grinned ear-to-ear.

"Bless you Amy girl," she said. "We just gave away the last of your key lime pies, and we thought we'd have a riot on our hands." The woman snorted and gave a full bellied laugh, the kind that made Amy hurt. It made her think of mirrors, compact mirrors that judged. Whenever she was younger she would practice on the proper ladylike way to laugh so that she could be charming even doing the little things, watching her actions from a compact mirror. It never worked, however, because anytime something humorous caught her off guard she would throw her head back and laugh loudly and obviously. No matter how hard she tried, Amy could not press out the flaws in her own self.

Amy smiled in return. "I'm just glad everyone likes them so much." She passed them off one by one, her pies and cookies and fudge and apples, and felt so much lighter when the last of them disappeared inside the bakery. Much lighter, as if she could breathe again. "Remember what I said. Please don't tell anybody I made them, and don't sell them. Give it away, to people who look like they need it."

The woman let out another amused chuckle. "You bet missy, such a generous and amiable soul you have when it comes to your food. I'll tell you though, your talent is impeccable, sometimes I have myself a bit of your pie and I swear I almost melt! If you opened your own bakery the boss'd be out of business so fast his head would spin! I'd work for you over this fuddy duddy anyday."

Amy gave a reluctant grin and took one of her own cookies, and followed the motion of the woman before her. They raised their cookies like glasses of wine, both of them in need of a good treat. "To baking!" Her friend bellowed. "Long live Amy Rose!"

Amy blinked and kept her smile as best she could, but suddenly she felt very sick. "Long live Amy Rose…" her voice died off and she made up for it by biting her cookie in half. It really was delicious, she had to admit. Better than any other cookie that had come before it. Perhaps a bakery _would_ benefit…

Amy dismissed the thought immediately. Open her own bakery?

As if.

* * *

That night she dreamed of the dress she had bought.

In the dream she was standing over a large cliff, her bold red dress rhythmically timed with the gusts of wind that blew her hair in different directions all over her face. The ground was covered in snow, but below the rocky cliff the sea was calm, unresponsive to the storm above the ground. In her dream she knew enough to find the situation strange, but as she turned she saw Cosmo. Only it was not the Cosmo she had known, but an older lighter evolved form, her features made soft by fond memory.

In a simple graceful motion this beautiful Cosmo took her hand and Amy reflexively dug her heels in the dirt, surprised as she felt a pang of dread. Cosmo kept going, took her over the cliff, but instead of falling they seemed to float on air. Amy shrieked and grabbed Cosmo's other hand, terrified and unwilling to accept the sudden loss of gravity.

"_Should and want_." Cosmo said suddenly, over Amy's fear. "_An ocean_."

Her hands let go, and Amy hovered in the air for a moment, like in a hilarious cartoon where the inevitable fall is stilled for the character to have a witty last remark. Her body sunk then, but she kept one hand extended, trying to reach Cosmo, her face painted over in horror as she realized she was going to-

Amy's eyes snapped open.

Her heart was racing and slamming so hard into her chest that it was the first thing she focused on when she came back from the other side. She sat up, hardly able to catch her breath, and placed a hand on her heart to try and slow down the frantic panic. She shook horribly, trembled as if her core was ice cold. She glanced at the clock and was distraught to see there were still hours to go before morning. She walked around her house for awhile, made some delicious hot chocolate, but could not gather enough nerve to go back to her bed.

So she put on her coat and walked all the way back into town. She found it a bit ridiculous, thinking about it, why in the world did she choose to build a house so far away from where everything was_? So it would be closer to Tails' workshop, so it would be closer to Sonic_. Amy answered herself and then rolled her eyes, then wished she hadn't. She also wished she had built her home closer, wished she had thought a little more.

Eventually she reached a patch of land that was only a mile or two from downtown, a rather large patch of land. It surprised her that nobody had claimed this land yet, not from what she could tell. Out of morbid curiosity she walked all around, looking for the signs that it was marked. Every Mobian knew that if you saw marked land that was that, but if there wasn't a single sign it was yours to take. When she was sure there was nothing, she stood there with her hands in her pockets, alarmed at her own actions. Why was she looking? Why did it matter that this prime patch of land didn't belong to anyone?

"It's yours." Amy was startled when she heard a voice beyond her shoulder, and when the pink hedgehog turned she saw the woman from the store, the one she had bought the piano from. Under Amy's gaze she yielded a smile. "It used to belong to my aunt, but she decided she didn't want to build a candy shop after all, and so she finally let it go. I'm actually here to say goodbye."

"Oh." Amy could only reply, and then she bit her lip. "What made your aunt not want to build a candy shop?"

"My cousin, her little girl died, not too long ago." The girl seemed very young then, and they both looked at the property, transfixed. "My aunt couldn't build a candy shop after that. Said it had too many memories. Emma, my cousin, loved candy. Any kind of sweets, but especially candy. Auntie wanted this land to go to someone who wasn't heartbroken. You know what they say, brings bad luck to start a new journey with a broken heart."

Amy nodded, and tried not to think about her own contradicting beliefs. She had stayed and lived her life, six months after the Metallix, and yet none of it had worked. In fact, there was this feeling of dread when it came to facing what she had built around herself. Her team, her friends, her passions, she hated being the person that enjoyed these things now. A tremor of pain passed through her spine as Amy inhaled a bit of breath, realization a bitter wound:

_I don't want my own life. _

Six months she had baked, been there for Tails, played with Cream, argued with Knuckles…and she had _hated_ it. In some small way she had hated it. From the minute she came back her world had been altered, and trying to gain back what she had lost was just impossible. Yet she woke up, day after day, not minding the effort. And then when Chris left, only a short time ago, the dissatisfaction grew, swelled, nearly knocked her over. Six months of her own life had been so much that in these past couple days, when she was given a job, a chance to do something that wasn't like her, she jumped at it with arms wide open. This event, this grand event that Tails had asked her to plan, was her way of breaking free, starting over, giving tribute to a friend who she had loved very dearly, setting Cosmo as her inspiration. Life had ended in one second for Cosmo, after eight years of torment she was happy even for a moment and that happiness gave way to willingness to die. But what about Amy? Amy lived hoping one day to be happy, to one day have the guy she wanted, the looks she craved, the talent…

The new Amy, the new Amy who had been there with her, transitioning for six months, was changing everything. She was making herself happy. The new Amy wanted to do this for Cosmo because she was hurting. She was not waiting, was not settling for _one day I'll be happy_. This grand event, this memorial celebration, had allowed her to stretch from the box of expectations that she had been trapping herself in.

Soon though, she would have to go back to fighting Eggman. He was overdue for one of his lousy schemes anyway. Could she go back, just like that? The last time they fought evil Cosmo had died. Amy tried not to think about it, for some reason that aspect made her sick to her stomach.

"Now, what would I do with land like this?" Amy thought out loud, and the other girl stared at her in a manner that told her she had considered this too. Amy gave the tiniest laugh. "I'm not all that great at making candy."

Her partner in insomnia offered a warm chuckle of her own. "Yeah, well, neither was Auntie…"

The two of them shared a moment of silence, before they burst into a fit of laughter. The kind of laughter that bubbles your mouth open at the times where it seemed most unfitting. It was the kind of laughter that takes place at funerals, hospital lobbies. Amy wrapped her arms around her stomach, which was starting to ache, and though they tried wave after wave of laughter just continued to wash over them. Then the laughter gave way to tears, but on the foot of that, even more laughter.

Amy hoped that wherever they were, Cosmo and Emma would understand all that she could not say with words alone.

* * *

The next day, Amy decides to clean out her attic.

What she finds is something she already knew was there, but she had long since forgotten. It is a small tiny pink box; the length of it is just long enough for an envelope. This is exactly what is inside. A letter. Even though she has two trash bags full of junk, Amy sits down to examine the treasured container. Her hand sweeps over the carved floral patterns, and though she cannot bring herself to question why, she opens the lid to see the envelope. It has yellowed from years of being ignored, and she has not read its contents, not even once.

Amy could remember her parents, and she had a handful of memories, always tucked away to comfort her. She could remember them. But what did it matter? Besides Cream, none of her friends had parents, and so she felt as if she could never say anything about them. Tails still felt hurt, she knew that much. The rest of them, even Sonic, she had no idea. Her parents had died due to an explosion, Metal Sonic had murdered them. Despite the fact that she could remember all the horrible things about that day, as Amy closed the lid, she did not feel as if that could stop her from opening the letter. It had remained closed out of fear, out of the fact that she didn't want to think about it. That she had considered it done, and there was no need to bring it up.

"Can I do it?" She whispered to herself. Her thoughts, altered from lack of sleep and an extreme amount of self-analyzing, carried past taboo and into acceptance. She wished her mother was here now, just for a minute. If she was meant to open it later, not today, she wanted to know. But the quiet continued.

In the end, she doesn't. She takes down the trash bags, closes up the entrance to her attic, and wipes dirt from her boots. After all that, she makes cupcakes.

The box, though, she keeps. Underneath her bed, a comforting voice casted in amber, until she would be ready for it.

* * *

**a/n:** _I sincerely hope you guys like what I've written over a pretty long period of time. I could never bring myself to erase it, and I've been reluctantly adding onto it for awhile now. I want to continue this, I'm just not sure if I only like it because I have a big ego, or because it's legitly good. 3_

_I love Amy Rose, and I always believed her character is a work in progress. So I enjoyed a scenario, a pebble thrown, in which progress is happening. Not the progress anyone could have thought though. Sometimes growing up means realizing your whole life doesn't mean what you want it to. _


	2. Mothers and Shy Boys

_Cupcakes For Amy_

_Chapter 2: __"Mothers and Shy Boys"_

* * *

The next night that keeps her awake holds a shy moon and even more bashful stars.

This time she has a dream about her mother, a black figure that she can only identify as familiar by the sound and flow of her voice. The thing that strikes Amy is that the voice is not one made soft and sweet by fondness or memory, but in fact the voice of her late mother is pressed and somewhat frustrated. Everything she says seems to take on an air of urgency that Amy does not quite understand, and because her heart races at this desperate figure's speech she begins to grow unnerved. She is talking about books, and it takes a while for Amy to remember that they used to do this all the time. It is not a loving moment, seeing her mother in a dream. It makes her blood feel too warm, the pulsing in her head becomes intense, she begins to realize every time she needs to draw breath. This, she knows, is a haunting; an event in which the dead do not settle where they belong, but kick up the dirt that has been smoothed over their existence.

She isn't a child in this dream, no, but she feels like one. Eager, stupid, and one dimensional. She is the Amy she has always been up until recently, the one her mother knew in a flighty blur. Amy is lying on a carpet with two different patterns, because in her subconscious she can't remember which one was supposed to go in the reading room, where her mother has brought her. It is either a forest green leaf pattern, or a rose bouquet pattern of different colors. Her mother sits down on a rocking chair and gathers Amy's hands, bringing her child's head into her cold lap. The pink hedgehog follows this silent command even though she wishes to wake up, to not feel as if there is a ghost behind her eyes, forcing them to close.

"_I miss you_." It is something she is not expecting. Amy's eyes and head fly upward to meet the figure. The character traits of this dream mother are so few that Amy only registers the long white quills and the neat blue of her eyes. "_I love you so very much_." There it is again, that pressed tone. As if she will die soon, all over again, and a response must be relayed right now now now.

Without warning there is a loud booming voice that bellows out a greeting. Her father enters her field of vision, and her heart floods. Of all the people she knew, she had always loved her father the most. She could remember loving him even as a babe, the way his voice made her smile and how much they loved to laugh together. "_My pink girl_," He says, and just the way he says it brings tears to Amy's eyes. She remembers him much more clearly. His red quills are accurately wild, she has even remembered the accent that can best be described as Irish, how green and strong and alive his eyes were. "_What's the matter? You seem so down. It's been so long since you've come to see us_."

"_See you_?" Amy whispers, but the moment she says it she realizes what he means. That she has not allowed herself to think about them for years. She didn't know the dead knew about things like that. She becomes so very ashamed that she wished herself to wake even more. "_I've been busy. I'm a hero now_." She tries, she makes excuses. "_I have a lot of friends. We save people_."

"_That's so grand_," her mother says. "_But what about her_?" Her slender fingers point toward something she cannot see beyond her shoulder. Amy turns without thinking, and her blood turns to snow in her veins. Cosmo is on the ground, and on the corner of her pale lips there is a theatrical trail of blood, her eyes are open and the sky blue irises watch as Amy trembles. Amy turns around, shakes her head, unable to speak. Her mother speaks for her. "_That's okay, little one. We know. It wasn't your fault. But she's changing you, isn't she_?" Amy has no time to reply, because all of a sudden, her mother is crying. "_I wish you wouldn't love him, you know."_

_Sonic._ The thought burns in Amy's brain, and it has the effect of a deadly virus. There is a gust of wind so strong that it carries Cosmo, her mother, and her father away. The room dissolves and she is left in blackness. She becomes very afraid. She looks up, around, away, and there is no one there for her. Not one. Her friends, her family, all gone.

She bends at the waist and presses her forehead into the ground, her hair swinging along with her head.

"_Leave me alone_!" She yells, and it echoes all around her. "_Leave me alone and let me be happy_!"

Even in her dream, she has no idea who her voice is being addressed to.

Amy wakes up with a shock, looks at her alarm clock, and sees that she has only been asleep for two hours.

* * *

"What do you think Amy?"

The hedgehog stirs back to the real world, trying to pretend like her mind hasn't been drifting in an out of a very mundane conversation. Cream's large and expecting eyes are drilling into hers, in their own odd way, intimidating.

"It's good." Amy answers wearily, but with a smile she hopes will pass for amiable. "Very good."

"But…" Cream's voice becomes confused. Her eyebrows slant down and the little rabbit awkwardly looks at her friend. "You haven't tried it yet."

Amy looks down at the brownie in her hand and blinks slowly, a blush firing up her neck. She bites into it to remedy her situation, and admits to herself that the chocolate is smooth. Amy makes a 'mmm' sound and offers a thumbs up, and it is like her little hiccup never happened. Cream smiles as if the sun is inside of her chest, with such unfiltered joy that Amy looks away for a moment. Amy washes it down with some tea that has a crisp minty flavor. Cream bites into her brownie and Vanilla does the same, identical even in timing. It makes Amy think of her dream last night, and to force herself to stop thinking about it she eats another brownie with twice the vigor. When they are done with the treats, Amy lifts up the tea tray and carefully gathers the dishes. This is the way she does things here. She acts like a sister and a daughter, helping with the dishes because she loves the way this house feels like home.

Vanilla joins her while Cream takes a bath, and for a while the two wash and dry side by side. Just when Amy thinks she is free of a conversation that she dreads having, the words come from the mother rabbit. "You look so tired, Amy. Have you not been sleeping well?"

She cannot lie to Vanilla. This woman, with her long dresses and pink lipstick and caring demeanor is practically the only one who truly truly loves her. She has offered this perfect house to her, offered her sweet mannerisms and demanded nothing in return.

"Mmm, no. I've had a rough couple of nights." Amy mumbles. She wonders if there's anything she can do to reduce the bags under her eyes, if there's a way to make her look livelier than she actually is. It has been two days on four hours of sleep, and though Amy had never considered herself unhealthy, it was starting to take a toll. She could hardly focus on one thing for longer than a couple of minutes, and she was always fighting the urge to collapse and sleep. "But I'm fine." She adds.

"Sleep here tonight," Vanilla smiles. "I just washed the sheets, and I promise that I'll do whatever it takes for you to feel comfy. I never liked the idea of you living all by yourself anyways. It must be awfully lonely at night."

"Not at all," Amy whispers as she dries off another dish. Even though she knows the rabbit does not mean anything even remotely offensive, Amy feels the need to defend. "I like my house."

"I know you do, dear. But…"

"I can't ask you to take me in." Amy manages to keep her voice level. "Because you are my friend. And Cream is my friend. To take advantage of that friendship, well, I would be riddled with guilt. Plus, I don't need a home, I have a lovely home that I built myself. So please, don't be worried." Amy dries a little more aggressively, and the action does not go unnoticed.

"I…" Vanilla's voice fades, and when Amy looks, she sees that the woman looks a little saddened. "I hope that's not what you really think. That Cream and I are your friends."

This startles Amy. "But…you are aren't you?"

"I always thought we were more than three friends." Vanilla admits. "I think of you as family. I know Cream does too, that she loves you like a sister. And, if I can be completely honest Amy, I think of you as my daughter. I mean, I worry about you. You're very strong, but I'm always worried. I love when you tell me things that are going on in your life. The times that all three of us spend together, those are the moments I treasure the most."

Amy thinks about the images that won't leave her. The image of her real mom, sitting by the window with an open book in her hand, the sunlight pouring in so subtly that it enhanced the grace and beauty that her mother was most known for. Ever since last night she has been remembering all sorts of things. How her mother hated when she played in the garden, the way she was always beautiful no matter what she was wearing or doing, the way she always read poetry to Amy, trying to pass on the beauty by words. If her mother was alive, would she appreciate Vanilla's speech? No, this Amy knew for sure. That was the thing about her mother, behind the poise and sophistication there was also a hot passion of possession. It was why she was often jealous without reason, why it always upset her that Amy was more her father's child. If the poet known as August Rose were still alive today, she would have been upset to hear another woman call Amy her daughter.

Amy glanced at Vanilla, and through the rabbit's brown eyes and easy grin was the face of her mother. She wished she could say that she felt the same. But it felt wrong. She had known the feeling only once before, the first time she ever met Shadow the Hedgehog. She had hugged him, thinking he was Sonic, but when she pulled away to see a different face, her whole body had felt only one thing. _Wrong. _It had said. _Wrong wrong wrong. _This was how it felt now, hearing a confession she could not reciprocate. Like if she were to pull away farther the image of Vanilla would twist and morph into a jagged monster with a wide open mouth, feeding off of the words of children who give precious titles away.

There are eyes still on her now. Amy remembers where she is. "But you aren't my mother." Amy whispers. She regrets every word she said though she cannot stop herself. "My mother was murdered, but I am still hers."

Vanilla takes a step back and brings her hand to her lips. She has a look of hurt that stings Amy so badly she feels like mirroring the motion herself. "I'm so sorry," Vanilla manages. "I didn't know. I mean, I knew, but I just forgot. Please Amy, I didn't mean to disrespect-"

"It's fine." Amy rushes in. She doesn't think she could handle another emotional speech. "Really. I love you and Cream very much, and you guys are so very close to my heart. It's just that…well…" For a moment she thought of how she wanted to express her reasons. She thought of describing how she felt when her mom died, or expressing how her mother would never be okay with her moving on with parental figures, or how she was resenting the feeling that she had to give everything away. But, in the end, all she could manage was. "She's my _mom_."

There was a span of respectable silence. Vanilla piped up the moment it felt like it was lasting too long. "If I may, I'd like to ask a question. Feel free to not answer, this subject must be so tender for you. But…do you miss her?" Vanilla's voice is filled with wonder. They had never had a conversation about Amy's past before.

Green irises met chocolate ones. And even though it would have been best, the teenage girl still could not lie. "It's not worth it to miss her." Amy puts down the last dish and walked to the back door. She could not explain it, but the room was suddenly so hot she was sweating in nervousness. But every time she looked at Vanilla a chill would sweep down her spine, the contradicting feelings resembling a fever that made her stomach twist. She reaches toward the door handle, and when she touches it, it feels as if it is the only thing that's real. Like everything could just be a terrible dream, not quite a nightmare. She felt it again, the pulsing in her head, the hot blood stinging in her veins, the pain that was starting behind her eyes. She could not stay here anymore. Cream would be disappointed, but Amy didn't think she could stand one more minute. Not one. And once she left Vanilla would tell her daughter what had happened. She didn't want to think about that.

She opened the door and closed it in a single draw of breath, and even though she heard Vanilla's calls on the other side, she pretended that she didn't. And by the power of her mind, when she ran, she put miles behind her shoes and the wake of a disappointed heart.

Amy does not go home for a while, instead she stops running in the center of a large mall.

* * *

When she slows down, people stop to stare at her. For a moment, Amy attributes it to the fact that she is a known hero. That several months ago she was on the television with a robot that had its skull flattened in the wake of her fury and hammer. Except that she suddenly remembers that there are bags under her eyes and her hair is a mess, her dress not pressed to perfection, but lazily put on. Her headband isn't even present anymore. Somehow, she has lost it. They are not staring at the powerful and feisty Amy Rose. They are confused at the messy and disheveled Amy Rose, the one who runs from people who love her and dreams of long gone dead people.

She slips away from the public, and all she can think is that between Cream, Vanilla, and these witnesses, someone will tell Sonic that she has become a lunatic. Her insanity, for lack of a better term, is becoming worse; she can feel it, the way she cannot make herself blend in to her molded place in life. Amy goes into a bookstore that she has never been in before. There are very few people here. She goes to the poetry section, because she has been prompted to remember it is deeply embedded in her. Bringing up the past, though hard, has awarded her with a different interest. Amy pulls out several interesting covers and settles down on the ground.

She reads for a while, from _Swords and Servants _to _Frostbitten Heartbreak _and _How Glorious a Summer._ She cannot remember the classics she used to listen to, but this works just as well. She props herself comfortably in a big cushiony pillow meant for children and reads without real order or strategy. That is one of the great things about poetry; she thinks to herself, that it does not really follow rules. She can skip to the end or the middle or read whatever she likes. She takes an odd sense of vindication from it.

They're mostly all about romance though. That's one of the unfortunate things.

Because every time she reads about a prince or a summer love, she thinks about a blue hedgehog with courage in his blood. How sweet his voice sounds, the way she can drown just by hearing him say the most simplistic phrases. It seems though she is slowly losing her mind, it had not stalled the maddening amount of love she feels for him. She loves him so much it drives her to clench the book with assertive need. Amy breathes out a sigh and let's herself daydream about Sonic appearing before her in a red cape and a sword in his hand, offering to whisk her away.

Poetry is good for another reason. In those romantic sonnets, even a noble prince of incalculable value can fall in love with a plain overly aggressive girl who just can't seem to get it right.

When the hours pass by and she is filled to the brim with poetry, she decides to leave.

She sneaks out of the back and slips away to the countryside, to a road that will eventually take her home. There are some good things about living a ways away from the city, like the quiet that only comes from the absence of metal and luxuries, and the way the dirt sounds under her boots. Still, she cannot help but wish she were closer.

_Maybe it's not that you want to be closer, _her mother whispers, clear as day in her ear. _Maybe it's that you want to be further away from them._

Amy turns around so fast that her hair smacks the side of her cheek, but as sure as the sound had been-it had been right _there_ for crying out loud—she cannot see anyone. The trees are so few and far in between that no one would have had a chance to hide. Fear grabs her by the throat, her heart is beating so quickly that even though she wants to scream, she can't. Her chest is heaving with the breath that was taken from her in the seconds of fright. All that she can hear now is the chirping of some distant birds, the whirl of a summer breeze passing by. There is nothing there.

Amy turns around, no more than a simple twirl, and is hit with something so hard that the next thing she sees is open sky.

* * *

"_Amy?"_

Her eyes are open, he notices, so he knows she is still conscious. The eyes still stare, so open that he can see the base jade of her irises, and then the spring green of the shine where the sun brings out the radiance. Her face is flushed, her arms spread open like she could only register the falling for a moment and not have the time to catch herself. He waits for a second-too long in his opinion-and is shocked when nothing happens.

"Amy?" Sonic tries again, and this time, the petrified look leaves her face when she blinks. He stands up and wipes the dirt and gravel from his knees, making sure his hands are clear when he offers one to her. She stands up as if she is not quite sure she can, but when she looks at him again, he is sure she _sees _him. Still, the half grounded bewildered gaze does not really leave fully. "I ran into you," he tries explaining. "Nobody goes on this road, and…I never thought I'd run into anybody so I wasn't paying attention and-"

"And you hit me…" She finishes in a breath that sounds on the brink of crying. For a moment there is a terrible feeling of guilt and embarrassment. He hates when girls cry, and to think that he might have hurt her would certainly mean tears. It is then, like the snap of a rubber band, he remembers that Amy does not cry with pain. Though she cries often in his opinion, he has never seen her tear up from a cut or a bruise. Still, the possibility of tears altogether makes him panic.

He is looking at her when he sees the blood run down her elbow, a small river that falls over her wrist ring and falls over the slender pathways of her fingers. It is then that he feels the real sting of a cut on his knee, and when he looks down; his beloved shoe now has droplets on the ankles. Amy turns around suddenly, toward the way she was facing when they bumped into each other. He looks where she does, and sees the open green grass of a well-kept world. She turns around, and the panicked look returns. She looks like a deer caught in the headlights, her eyes remarkably wide. She looks like she wants to say something, like the words are in her throat but she cannot make them real. She looks, to him, like a frightened animal. He feels the need from the pit of his stomach to get that look to leave her, of all the things he is used to he is not used to Amy behaving like this. No, not Amy. She is pretty fearless, the only one he knows who can watch him disappear into a mass of metal and feel the need to prove herself as well. That, he can admire.

"So, can we get patched up at your house?" He says, and his head tilts a little so he can ensure she can see him.

Amy snaps back into the motions of someone who is alive and well, brushing her hair back into being tame, she sounds breathless. "Right, um, yeah, okay. Yeah, cause I have bandages. Right." Amy stares into his eyes the same way that is uniquely her, with equal parts aggression and enamored joy. It is the kind of stare that makes him shy, because she will hold a gaze with such boldness he cannot help but fall under the pressure they hold. Her presence alone is very intimidating, she is always so sure that by comparison, nobody else seems to hold a candle in their confidence. Her cheeks are red again, the way they often get when he knows she is captured in her intense feelings.

Amy smiles at him, and they begin walking in the same direction. He wonders if her elbow stings the way his knee is burning, if she is in pain at all. They walk side by side, not saying much of anything. His hand swings a little too much in a stride and knocks against her own.

She comments on it, of course. "You wanna hold my hand?" Even though it is embarrassing as hell, there is also something comforting about it. This is normal Amy, the one who is not so much a beautiful shy and patient blossoming flower as she is a building bomb, full of fire and sly smiles and ulterior motives that she cannot hide so well so she falls back on her brave expressions of love.

Sonic manages a nervous chuckle, and Amy's head turns back to the road. There is a distant easiness in her face, but there is something that the security brings out, tired eyes. She suddenly looks so sleepy. Sonic is almost taken aback by the sheer exhaustion in her face, as if she has not slept for years and years.

"Sonic?"

"Yeah?"

"We're here." She is looking up at him now. Her face is sad, and he thinks she has read his mind, but such a thing is so impossible that he feels ashamed for thinking so. He stops along with her, stopping just short of the pathway to her door. When he looks back at her again, she is smiling.

The inconsistency breaks his optimistic demeanor. He is actually worried. Something is wrong.

What is going on with Amy?

* * *

Amy is sitting on the couch sorting through a first aid kit, when she finds the bandages she's looking for.

Sonic is sitting on a chair that she actually built by hand and spent hours painting it with a smooth green that reminds her of a mellow spring. He rocks back and forth with the frequency of someone who is bored out of their mind, but he doesn't say anything. He has never been one for talking, he has always preferred to observe, it is something she loves, but now it is the most unsettling thing in the world. She walks over to him and wraps his knee with the care that projects her feelings ten times over, pleased when her handiwork shows a perfect, lovely example of dressing a wound. She stands up and places her hands on the front of her dress, the manners of a princess.

"Can I get you something to eat?" She asks. Just this morning, before the entire Vanilla incident, she has made several dozen cookies with flavored chocolates settled in the middle. An entire apple pie, a small pan of fudge, and some tea she blended herself. And then, a project that she started after the nightmare, two decorated jumbo cakes. When she sees that he's having a hard time answering, she stands up and goes to the kitchen herself. She gets the jumbo cake, a mug that she fills with tea, and two cookies. "Here," she offers. "you don't have to eat it, just in case you want it."

"Thanks." Sonic replies with a grateful tone. He takes the tiny plate from her and his eyes widen. "What bakery did you get this from?" He asks, taking in the frosting pattern that is unmistakably professional, a cupcake of a large size with his face, complete with a race track and an amazing frosting rendition of his shoes. It looks so delicate and artistic that he hesitates on even touching it, but he gathers his fingers around the base at the bottom, lifting it up to look at it in the light.

"Me, err—I did." Amy answers with a smile so wide she must close her eyes to make room.

"_She was always so talented." _The words come again, and Amy does not have to turn to know it is her mother. She dares to glance, and sees that the young white angel is sitting on her couch, her hand extended in a hand gesture, talking to her father, who is sitting back with his arms crossed. They are both smiling. _"Remember how she used to make us breakfast in bed? She'd come in so excited, and she'd sit between us to watch us eat it."_

"_Best muffins I ever had." _Her father chimes in, his voice loud and booming as always.

"—is just awesome!" Amy tunes in to the other side of the room, where Sonic is admiring her hard work. There are butterflies in her belly, warm and light, so jittery and abuzz that her smile returns. Amy looks back, not expecting her parents to be there, but they are looking as real as the fabric of her couch. They are talking about things amongst themselves, things that sound like useless adult talk. "Amy?" Sonic pipes up, and Amy turns around again.

"Thank you." Amy responds politely, and when he takes a bite, she watches him.

"_I can see why she likes this one," _August is saying, though her tone is not approving at all. _"He's very handsome. Though I do wish he'd put on a shirt." _Her hand is resting under her chin, her eyes tilted toward the light. Amy sees now that her mother is the kind of beautiful that people write songs about, the kind of lovely that is so enchanting she makes sure she is never a dull experience in the life she lives. Anyone with her mother would kiss her every day, and always make sure to tell her she was loved. It was the scary kind of beautiful. After all, with looks like those, you always remember the worth, and how painful it would be to lose such a fortune. August catches her eye, sees her daughter looking from the corner and puts on a slow smile. _"Tell him he looks handsome. Men like to be complimented."_

Her father merely grunts. He disapproves, but he is dead, and there is no place for a dead man's objection in the world of the living. _"Well," _he shrugs. _"He is a hero. My girl could do worse I guess. But does he have to treat her so coldly? I don't remember it being that way with us, no. Am I missing something?"_

Her mother leans forward a bit then, toward her husband. Her hand finds its way to his arm, and her voice becomes defensive, in the way that is trying too hard. _"No no dear, that's the way it is now. The boys all keep the girls at arm's length, keeps them from being in embarrassing situations. It's different than in our day. Maybe, maybe he's just very shy. If you're shy, you might treat a woman poorly."_

'_Shut up,' _Amy thinks so loudly she is screaming. The world is wobbling and she is so dizzy. _'Shut up and leave me alone.'_

"—did you get the chocolate in the middle?" Sonic is asking.

"_-Go on dear tell him he's handsome!"_

"_-If you ask me—"_

"-It tastes amazing!"

"_-No one asked you Alister! This is women's business!"_

"—really impressed!"

"—_I'm just saying August!"_

"—_handsome!"_

"—okay?"

Amy's head is filled with voices, she straightens like a child being punished. There might be tears at the corners of her eyes, but she doesn't feel them. She is only aware of the headache that is swelling into a means to make her even more insane. Suddenly she is so very _tired,_ able to feel every hour of sleep that has been stolen from her, able to sense that she cannot keep it up much longer. Everything crumbles, everything dies, even little girls with careful and simple smiles.

"...You look very handsome today," She complies and it becomes very quiet. All eyes are on her, they might as well be lasers, but she only cares about one set of eyes. They are so lively and alive, not the shade of green she has, but a light spring of a color that makes her heart beat so loud it is all she can hear. Sonic blushes, as does she, an ocean in their ears. Amy coughs a little and manages a smile. "I know you only came here to get a bandage, but, maybe we can hang out a bit longer?"

For a moment there is nothing. "Please?" She adds.

"Sure." Sonic answers. It sounds forced. For once there is not a cheesy smile of an answer, or the non-answer he likes to give. He stares at her as if his comfort zone has just been ripped out from under him.

No matter, she'll take what she can get. Her mother stays silent, blue eyes frozen in a look of sly interest, her father leaves the room, Vanilla still has not come to cause alarm. Despite the fact that she is going crazy, and seeing the ghosts of her past, for a moment everything feels better than it has in a long time. The world melts away, angered to have been left behind, but it waits patiently on the outside of her door. They give her these precious moments seperate from madness, a gift from the universe not many are awarded.

* * *

**A/N: **Do you think Mobians have, like, pet dogs and stuff? I mean, do they see a puppy in the window and be like, "Aw how cute!" or "Oh hey, there's Ron again." Is it like the Goofy/Pluto thing? I mean, Goofy is clearly a dog, so then what the heck is Pluto? Are there regular hedgehogs on their planet? I mean, you know for a fact there's Jet the Hawk and birds that sing on tree limbs. Does that mean there's anthro dogs and then regular dogs? I mean, there's a little inconsistancy in this made up planet of theirs. I'm sure I'd know if I read the comic, but let's face it, the comic is God awful. Blegh.

So, Amy gets to convince Sonic to chill for a couple more hours. Willl Vanilla intervene and cause concern? What's with Amy seeing her folks? Are the ghosts of the past really there, or is Amy just losing her mind? All I know is, don't get your hopes up for a Sonic/Amy kiss next chapter. I don't plan on it.

-GlitterElixir


	3. Fearless, the Guilt I

_Cupcakes for Amy_

_Chapter 3: "Fearless; the Guilt I"_

* * *

Amy Rose has known for a long time that she lives in a world where she could never anything else than what she is.

There were some children who ran around dreaming about going into space, about making sick animals better, about being so courageous that they could stop screeching trains from falling over cliffs. She cannot, for the life of her, remember if her childhood held any such dreams. If she ever aspired to be anything, if she had ever stopped to think about the future at all. She only knew that she had never planned on becoming a superhero, until the ground fell beneath her and instead of dying she had looked up to see herself in the arms of someone so stunning she felt as if the air had been robbed and replaced with a drugging smoke. Amy wondered if her mother would have approved, if her father had lived to see her change she might not be allowed to become who she was now.

Amy also knows that it is far too late to change now. Who could hire her to do anything, after seeing her swing her hammer into a robotic torso and smashing the pieces? The feeling is not unlike entrapment, but like every other odd thing she thinks about this past while she keeps her opinions to herself.

"What did you want to be," Amy murmurs just above the wind. "When you grew up?"

Sonic the Hedgehog turns to look at her, and his feet swing a little, hovering over the severe drop. They are on a ride that will take them to the top of a racing course. He had to admit, he didn't think Amy would come up with an amazing way to pass the time. When he agreed to spend a couple of hours with her, and she wondered if he would like to race, well, let's just say he was waiting for a catch. It would be so her to challenge him to race for the right to propose to him. She did things like that, silly childish but love proclaiming things. He thinks about her question, about the afternoons he would spend with his dog and his uncle and tried to imagine if he ever wanted anything besides what was in the moment.

"There was a time," He recalls, his hand under his chin. "I wanted to be a race car driver." The answer comes so easily, but Amy's face falls at the end of his sentence. He is willing to bet she doesn't even know it, but her face is so sad and disappointed it nearly breaks his heart just to look at it. "Why? What did you want to be?"

Amy looks up at the apparition that is sitting at the top of the machine that is lifting them up, her wide eyed lovely mother that could not stand to be left alone at the house. Today she is wearing a white sundress that is tinted in the slightest of pink shades, a very iconic looking sunhat resting on her straight snow locks. She is wearing no shoes, and for a moment this bothers Amy. But ghosts, or rather, ghostly hallucinations, do not need shoes. And yet there is an inconsistency to the bare feet, as if August might be toying with her by not appearing as anyone else would, with sensible and visible shoes.

"_You loved smashing things. You would play with your dolls and have the ladies kill the dragons. You never seemed to remember that it wasn't the way the story went._ " August remembers with ease, and with a smooth smile she closes her eyes. "B_ut I think more than anything all you ever wanted was to be close to your father_." Her long white quills were being captured by the wind, but whenever her fingers traveled to tame her locks, they remained stilled, as if she had only been semi-real for a small brief moment. "_No matter what he did, you would follow him around and your face would just light up when he patted your little head_."

This, Amy does not know. She wonders if she is hallucinating anymore, at what point is it just easier to believe after something surprises you so much? Hallucinations couldn't give you information you didn't already know, right? Wasn't that the way it worked? That deep down the brain's imagination could not discuss the impossible? She decides to trust the information, because otherwise she is in the same wondering and restless boat she started in.

"My Dad." Amy says sweetly. "I just wanted to be like my Dad." When his eyes soften and widen at her response, she looks away, in an almost embarrassed fashion. She does not know what he's feeling, if anything, or if she even has a right to bring it up. Amy lifts her head and watches the clouds, so large and well defined that it means a large storm is coming through, but not just yet. Right now it looks beautiful, the subject of a summer painting. "He was so cool." She finds herself saying. "I remember he would throw me up in the air and he'd do it higher than all the other fathers, who were scared and weak. And he always smelled like the tops of pine trees, and he had a big booming voice you could feel in your chest."

Sonic does not say anything in response; he does not even know what there is to say. He has never heard Amy talk about her family, though it was obvious they had been murdered. There were never any pictures hanging, she had never cried openly about missing them. In fact, Amy had always done everything she could to smooth over their existence. They all had. It was the way of children when they grieved, especially ones like Amy. Sonic also marvels at the sound of Amy's voice, once finally calm and quiet and not holding a burning passion, he did not ever know that her voice had a natural poetic vibe. A silence grows and he swings his feet to a rhythm in his head. He doesn't know what she expects from him. He doesn't know why, but the thought that she had always wanted him to listen to her past makes his stomach ache.

"I used to think I was so lucky." Amy's eyes become fond and sweet. "Because I had a Dad that was so much better than everyone else's. And he loved me more than anybody ever has. And he was stronger than the other Dads too." He had been fond of his heritage of extremely strong men, and she could remember his proud face the first time she lifted a handful of logs that most men couldn't hold. "I think that's where I got my strength from." She says obviously. "I've just always been that way."

Sonic can't help the smile that suddenly sucker punches his features. "I bet you were the biggest troublemaker." He says. The thought of a tiny Amy with all her willpower and crushing power, well, he didn't know what kind of parents her parents had been, but he knew they must have had their hands full. He can imagine a miniature Amy, fists pounding and asserting herself into any situation she wanted. Now that he thinks, it makes him feel a bit nervous. "I can also see you being a handful and a half." He comments in a rush to fill the air.

_"A bit. But you were the cutest, tiniest little thing." _August giggles with her fingers at her lips. Amy has a sudden flashback of a kitchen, her mother eating grapes, the juice suspended on her bottom lip. The pink hedgehog's eyes widen, she has never remembered anything out of the blue. And yet the memory is as real as the center of her palm, which her fingers have closed around.

"A bit." Amy recites. She feels off, as if her skin has been numbed and she is trying to walk without the feeling of feet and legs to keep her sturdy. "But I've been told I was cute." There is something about that last rush of words that she doesn't like. "I've been thinking about selling my desserts." Amy tries. The woman at the bakery who complimented her the other day flashes to fond memory.

"You have?" Sonic turns.

_"You have?" _August mimics.

"I…have…" Amy Rose blinks and smiles sweetly. "You know, just as a side project or something."

_"How exciting!" _August claps her hands and makes a show of her joy, her eyes closed with a bright ladylike smile.

Sonic blinks twice and recovers a bit. "You make top notch stuff, you'd make a fortune." He tries to imagine Amy in front of a prestigious bakery, wearing the apron and hat and everything. He cannot imagine her with a shy and humble pose, her hands intwined with a small smile. Instead he pictures her with her hands on her hips, wide grinned and armed to the nines with mittens on her hands and a spatula. He can also see, if he thinks further, her face splashed with splotches of flour, tuffs of hair sticking out to show how hard she had been working.

He chokes a bit on the image. It's almost…_cute. _He is almost terribly paranoid when the thought crosses his mind, but when he turns to see Amy, she is asleep.

"Hey," He says, as they are almost at the top of the course. It has only been five to ten minutes. "Hey, Amy. Wake up."

Instead, the sleeping hedgehog slumps to the side and falls on his arm. He shakes his shoulder, and she makes a started noise and sits straight up, clipping him on the chin. Both of them are left clutching their injured body parts, and Amy is apologizing feverishly. "Sorry sorry sorry!" She rubs the top of her head trying to force the sting out, and then puts her fist to her eyes and rubs them too, trying to force the exhaustion from her weary brain. "I didn't even know I fell asleep!"

Sonic's chin pounds for a bit, but it is nothing serious. "You know," he starts. "About that…"

But the device that is carrying them rests at the top and Amy jumps off just as quickly as she can and skates rather effortlessly toward the main starting area. Sonic slumps forward and lets his board hover and catch him before easing forward. Amy is getting ready already, her arm out ready to make momentum of her own. He could be imagining it, but he could swear she was determined not to talk about her obvious exhaustion. But when he turns to her again he is struck by the confidence in her pose, the lively fire in her eyes that has always been more reckless than anything. He falters and decides that he must have been wrong. Amy does not look like the victim of insomnia, now, with the wind blowing through her bangs and her smile tipping up wickedly.

"Are you ready?" Amy pipes up, looking at his confused stance. "Because I'm going to beat you."

There is another flash of the image, with the chef hat and flour splotches and big wide grin.

He knows now. She must be fine.

He grins back. And they face the starting line. "You're on!" He exclaims. There is nothing quite like the feeling of racing.

When the countdown is over he speeds forward, eager for a challenge.

And despite all the things that Amy was not, he could always count on her as a smooth but strong and fearless oppositional force that only strived to make him stronger.

* * *

Despite her confidence and her love for competition, Amy only wins three out of nine times.

She tries to take it with grace, as she knows that there really wasn't a chance that anyone could completely best Sonic the Hedgehog at anything that involved racing. But it is hard, when defeat set in the eighth time and she found herself coasting the last round, not really giving it a shot. There is something childish but sad about competing with no hope of winning, and when one decides to shrug their shoulders and stop caring, it is even more pathetic. To make matters worse, when she crosses the finish line a whole twenty seconds after him, he offers a water to her, smiling. Amy looks at the gesture that is supposed to be kindness and almost has a violent reaction of telling him to stick that bottle where the sun doesn't shine.

She cannot help it, she is a terrible loser.

There are wet circles around her armpits and she feels as if the sun has been melting the skin on her arms for the past hour. She takes it and makes it a point to glare at his back when he turns away. Beside her, August smiles in a blissfully ignorant way. "_Don't be a spoiled sport, Amy_." August says, and with a giggle and an extended hand she lightly taps her daughter's head. "Y_ou didn't even try on that last one. So it doesn't matter if you lost_."

Amy glares. "What do you know about anything?" She says, and it is not in the quite hushed tone she usually addresses her hallucinations. It is bold, loud, as if deep down she has forgotten just what August is. Three workers that maintain the course look up and glance at her, but she does not even know they're there. Amy even turns toward the figment and purses her lips. "You're only a figment of my imagination. What do you know about winning and losing?" August sticks out her tongue playfully, and strokes the back of Amy's head, and the little pink hedgehog is scared to death when she feels every moment of it. Amy turns her head to the sky, and the two hedgehogs watch the clouds, which seem to have gotten bigger since the beginning. The bottom of these storm clouds are outlined in a deep gray. One of the maintenance men turn and tap Sonic the Hedgehog on his shoulder, as he has already been walking ahead of her for some time. When the blue hedgehog turns, his heart jumps in his chest.

Amy is _talking_. To someone, and it is clear as day that she believes she is. But the only thing beside her is open air.

Meanwhile, the pink hedgehog is unaware of the eyes that are gathering on her. Amy blinks and stares at the blue of the sky, but does not look at the apparition. "Do you feel the wind?" Amy asks innocently. "Can you smell the moisture in the air? Can you sense things like that?"

August pauses, but does not give much time between the question and answer. "I don't know." The blue eyes crinkle at the edges. "I've forgotten what it's like to feel and to not feel those things. I suppose I do, yes. Maybe." True to her poetic nature, August places a hand at her breast and closes her eyes with a somber smile. "There are times I become so afraid, for no reason. There are times I feel raindrops on my skin as if it's pouring down on me. Sometimes my chest gets tight, and I taste blood, and my heart slows to a slow hum." Amy is surprised by this, but August's face does not change. "My body has memories." She breathes the words softly, so that Amy is enraptured and hanging on the pause. "It knows that it died, sometimes. But it also remembers, just as suddenly, the feeling of being touched, and loved. Sometimes it remembers the sun and the wind and I can smell the smell of pine trees after a big storm."

Amy is saddened by this, but she doesn't know why. "Isn't that confusing? How do you know which one's going to come?"

August turns toward her daughter and chuckles. "In that way," she whispers. "That confusion. The lack of knowing, I am just like everyone else."

This strikes Amy as the most odd but profound thing she has ever heard. The sun is like a comforting blanket on her back, and for a second everything seems to be balanced. "Is it really okay? To not know?"

"I think it's presumptuous to assume otherwise. There is very few things we can know. And few opportunities in which we are granted a warning before something awful happens, or a preview for something wonderful" August says in her fluent tone. She gives a childish smile. "Control is only an illusion. When you stop to think about it, we are all just tiny beings. We cannot really control anything. I cannot make it rain, or make a person love me, or hate me. I can try, and sometimes it happens, but only though cause and effect. In actuality, we are not able to exist separately from this world, which means we cannot control things in the way that we are able compartmentalize a desk, or a folder."

The two think about this for a minute. Amy finds herself thinking deeply, but she is so tired that her brain doesn't seem to want to connect. Instead, her thoughts drift to a peaceful static. But then, something occurs, and a thought buds from the nothingness. It is so powerful a thought that Amy is nearly knocked backwards. She keeps her composure, but it is like broken glass trying to fit into something else to feel a sense of wholeness.

"Are you…" Amy keeps her eyes on a certain ridge of clouds, and though she fights it, tears glaze her eyes terribly, until the sky is nothing but the two stretching colors of white and blue. The tears burn her eyes until she feels her sadness has been given the form of a weak fire, a dying flame. "Are you _here _for me?" She chokes on the last word, as if she can barely bear to ask the question. Her eyes shake, and two small rivers stream over her cheeks. She cannot begin to decode her feelings, or what side of the spectrum they're even on. There is no need to clarify on her question, for both parties know exactly what she means to ask. Amy unclenches her fists and feels the strain as her muscles relax, and it is a brief moment of pain before a long ease of a relaxing sensation. "Is that why you're here? Is that why I can feel you? Is that why I see you and hear you and nobody else can?"

August closes her eyes, and when she does, two tears fall symmetrically on each cheek. She swallows and smiles, but her voice crackles like a silver candy wrapper, trying to expand once let go and given room to breathe.

_"I don't know."_

Amy turns, but her mother is gone. Amy looks at the spot where her figment of imagination once was, and tries desperately to not admit she wants her mother back, immediately, right beside her. For days she had been wishing for this scenario. She wanted it more than anything, to be left alone and for the dead and the living to be separate into their own realms. Amy keeps her face straight as if her life depends on it. Though her lips quiver and her eyes glaze she keeps her composure.

She looks forward, to see Sonic. He is conversing with someone who wants his autograph. She watches the profile of his face for a second, entranced by the light that plays on his face.

"I love you." She whispers. And with the love of her life half turned to her and half turned away she makes a decision that has more significance than she could know, even now.

* * *

Amy does not make a dramatic scene, she does not plan a romantic farewell to set a serious mood. She does not reenact Casablanca with vigor.

Instead, she takes a train.

She doesn't know where she wants to go, only that she doesn't want to go to a forest or anywhere where she has to battle nature. Her first choice would always be the beach, if this were normal circumstances. Amy loves the beach more than anything in the world, the way sand feels on her feet or the bright sting of a good tan, the sound of a tide crashing on rocks is something that has always calmed her down. She likes how the ocean can be calm and smooth and soothing and then a force to be reckoned with. If she had it her way, she would find a train to take her to a luxury beach and she would curl up into a ball and sleep in the sunlight.

But he hates the beach. She is aware of that, all the time. Even if he is not expected to be there, physically or in her mind, it is all she can think when she goes to the beach.

She doesn't want to think about him.

Err, well, maybe she does. She can't decide. The very idea of not thinking about him sends her reeling.

She is quite in love with him.

She is not sure what to do with all of that love. It is the kind of adoration that is so frantic and passionate and strong that she never responds to the electric feeling maturely.

In the seat, her body subconsciously shrugs a little.

"A life without passion," She whispers. "Would be so boring."

She mindlessly stares out of the window, looking tired and exhausted and out of it.

Amy Rose lets her eyes drift to sleep, and she has one thought before she goes unconscious. She decides that when she wakes up, the next stop she sees will be the one she leaves on.

Her head sinks a little, a surrender.

She is too tired to notice the ghostly presence that watches her sleeping form, brushing her hair back and keeping her comfortable through the hard bumps in the tracks. This white haired woman watches over her with the tenderness that inspires poets. A little child in the opposite seat sees this lovely woman and coos gently. Though it is just a babe, it knows exactly who this woman is. It does not take personal history or age or effort for a child to spot the love of a mother. And the serenity that comes when a child is under a blanket of security, the gentle hum of peace the world allows for them, hard to obtain but easy to see. There are hardly words to describe the invisible ties between a mother and a daughter.

A tie that is only stuttered by death, but not defeated by, on hold but never ending. Never dying out.

No, never dying out.

* * *

Amy dreams of Cosmo again.

She is running with the little girl, running and running down an empty hallway that never seems to end.

There are snarls behind them, the bared hot breath of a beast. Amy pushes harder, holding onto Cosmo's hand.

There is a brief thought. Did Tails feel this frantic? When he protected her, did he feel as if he could do anything? Did he feel tired? Like he needed to stop?

"Should and want." Cosmo whispers in a frightened manner. "An ocean."

"No! Stop! Don't! I don't want you to worry!" Amy yells over her own panic, but her voice is frantic and filled with tears. "I'm not leaving _without you_!" She doesn't dare look back. She can feel the shadow of the beast, oppressive, threatening to steal the air from her lungs. Amy grits her teeth and hopelessly fights back tears. "I'm not!" She screams as loud as she can, still running, still holding onto the little hand of a sad girl. "I won't let you go! I won't let him take you!"

Amy runs faster, and knows the exact moment when Cosmo's hand and tiny fingers slip from her grip.

Amy stops and turns, and she sees Cosmo, a hand extended, a pitiful terrified face. She sees the edges of the tainted shadows rushing.

Cosmo is eaten away by the blackness. And when her body disappears Amy screams and twists her head every which way to see where the beast has run to.

"Coward!" Amy screams while she slams her fist down and screams at the ceiling of this demented hall. "Fight me! I'll fight for her! I'll fight for all of them!"

She is not sure what she means by that. Nothing happens.

And then suddenly, he is there.

"Would you?" He asks.

"Yes!" Amy screams, looking at his spring green eyes. Tears are streaming down her cheeks. Her heart is pounding so hard it hurts. "Don't let her get away! Don't let her die! Don't let it take her!"

"I tried." He whispers, weakly. "Don't you think I tried?"

"Not hard enough!" The words shock Amy. She stills, as if she has shot herself.

They stare at each other for minutes, long minutes, desperate. Amy's words finally unclog from her throat and give way.

"You didn't…" She hiccups. "You didn't try hard enough. If you did you would have been able to _save _her, like you've saved all of us…"

"Do you really believe that?" He asks her honestly. "Do you really believe the reason she isn't here is because I didn't try hard enough?"

Amy shakes her head. She does not speak for a long time.

"I think," her voice quivers. "That when someone dies…" She wiped at her eyes. "I think when someone dies we shouldn't act like it never happened! We shouldn't act like we did her any favors! She came to us for help and she _died! _And we can't ever bring her back! Not like she was! She came to us, she came to me, and now she's _dead._"

The words sit in the air for another long while.

"You failed." Amy slinks down to the ground, worn thin. "I failed." She realizes, her eyes wide and mouth hung open.

Amy stares at the ceiling, her lips shake. And all at once she discovers something vivid and horrific.

"_It was me_."

* * *

The man who shakes her awake does not look as mad as his gruff voice implies.

"Look, kid," He breathes when her eyes fly open. "It's okay, it's me, the conductor."

Amy sits up, feeling disorientated and wildly dizzy. Her bones ache. When she looks outside she sees that it is still daytime.

"No, no." Amy manages, her voice sleepy and thick like syrup. Her head is swimming and her words don't seem right. "I have a ticket. I got on this morning, but my stop isn't here yet...I've only been on the train for-"

"Three days." The conductor finishes. "I know, but we're at our last stop. You either have to buy another three day ticket, or get off at this stop."

"Three days?" Amy shakes her head. "That's not possible."

The gruff tiger pats his belly and laughs boisterously. He looks like a grandfather and his mustache curls at the ends. "Well, take a look at where you are lass."

When Amy scans the room, she sees she is separated by her own separate cart. A blue slightly transparent curtain is over the door, but there is a clear red cross over it, and though it is backwards from where she sits she can see that the words clearly read: Medic.

Amy pats her head, and is surprised when she feels a slightly damp feeling. "You guys washed my hair?" Amy nonsensically wonders.

"Well, I mean, you'd start to stink otherwise." The tiger bellows out another laugh. "Our medics used to helping the elderly..."

"Pass on." A woman responds next to Amy. It shocks the pink hedgehog, but her mouth is too dry to yelp. The woman is wearing scrubs, and she has the features of a bear but the tail of a cat. Her smile is caring and sweet. "It was out job before this one. We were nurses for those who wanted to be comfortable when they passed on."

The tiger nods sincerely. "Right. Yeah, err-pass on." He winks at Amy. "So they're a lot more hospitable than the other medics you're likely to find. They wouldn't let you stink up the place. Bad business, bad manners, bad etiquette, and bad personal policy."

Amy manages a smile. Despite the shock, the sudden awakening, and the news that she has been a modern day short-term Rip Van Winkle, she likes the conductor. His voice is deep and gruff and she likes that he hasn't begged her for money to cover this separate cart. When Amy lifts her other hand to wipe at her eyes, she feels weighed down. When she looks, she sees a bonafide IV. There is a clip on her finger. She is connected to a very official looking machine or two. "I don't..." Amy takes a second. "I feel like, I don't know. There's no way I could have been asleep the whole time."

"You were extremely exhausted." The woman answers kindly. "To be fair, I think we ought to let her rest another day."

"Really?" The conductor asks. "You really think so, Dee?"

"I do. I think it would be best. Her blood pressure was iffy, and I don't like her color."

Amy realizes something and her cheeks turn pink. "Did I..." she stutters. "I mean, you've been hydrating me while I was asleep...I mean, did I..."

The nurse shakes her head. "Oh no honey," She manages to save the poor pink hedgehog. "I got you up and you stayed conscious long enough to do your business. Don't you worry about that baby. You _passed _out. Most likely due to fatigue or stress or being dehydrated..." She waves her hand. "Besides, I'm a nurse. Don't be embarrassed, I deal with things a lot less pleasant than that." Her smile is enough to make Amy relax.

"Good." Amy breathes. She turns to the conductor. "I am so sorry. I'll leave as soon as I can."

The man scratches his chin and hid lips purse sideways. "Ah, lass, don't you worry about that. If Dee thinks you need more time to relax, well, I trust her judgement on that one. Can't very well leave you to your own devices, can I? I'd be a poor excuse of a man if I could."

Amy shows her teeth in the smile that reinvigorates her spirit. "Thank you, sir. Truly. Thank you."

"Do me a favor, though."

Amy's face falls in seriousness. "Anything." She promises.

"Promise me that you take care of yourself. And better than you have been."

Amy takes a moment and nods slowly. "Well, from where I am now," she says. "That wouldn't be too hard."

* * *

**A/N: **Guys, I am so sorry this is so monstrously late. I have been through so much from the time I last updated this. I lost someone I considered a friend, if even for a while, and it turned very bitter for me on my end. I was depressed, I repaired my life and some bridges I had burnt. I had to fix what was so messed up. I got a new laptop on an entirely new program and I have been figuring out my artwork from scratch. I am so sorry. I will make a vow that unless I lose my arms I will do better. So much better. I am so sorry, everyone. Thank you, thank you for reading this.

There was also an issue with my writing. When my friend looked at it, I became so very aware of what was wrong with it. So I redoed my entire gameplan for this thing. This chapter might seem a bit radical, but it's because I changed the plot and what is going to happen. I think you guys will like it. I also took a bit more spaces and tried not to be so immersive and boring. 3

**Reviews for Chapter 2**

April7000222: I am so sorry I missed the deadline for Christma But maybe this will be a spring time celebration gift. I am so sorry for the slow update. It won't happen again if I can help it 3

Amy the Rascal: Ohmygoodness. It is reviews like this that propelled me to want to do the best I could. It is a gift to me to read this, truly. I feel as if your words were so real and so sincere that it was a blessing just to have the fortune of your attention. I am so glad that there is another Amy fan that wants her to be depicted well . But I know exactly what you mean. Heck, I started writing this because I couldn't find any really good fics lately. 3

Kitty in Boots: Don't worry dear, I will. A lot of personal things have happened but I should be able to update a lot more often now. 3

Fennec the Fox: Oh, this will make her crazy. It's already ridding her of sleep. XD And thank you for the answer I posed in the last author's note. It will actually help me with later chapters.

**CHAPTER FOUR WILL BE STARTED THIS WEEKEND AND I PLAN ON UPDATING SO QUICKLY IT WILL MAKE YOUR HEAD SPIN!**


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